Q&A/Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring; Coping With the Aftermath of Infidelity

HEALING the pain of infidelity is the life work of Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring. A marriage therapist, a clinical supervisor in Yale's psychology department and the author of ''After the Affair'' (HarperCollins, 1997), she fields questions about why adultery happens and how to cope with the aftermath. Her research shows that infidelity is one of the most common -- ''I think the numbers here are huge'' -- and most difficult to treat problems in human relationships.

Dr. Spring speculated that people who are working hard and pressed for time ''may feel that they are on such a deprivation schedule in their everyday lives that the affair seems like a welcome relief, the one place where they let themselves be spontaneous and enjoy themselves.''

The Westport-based therapist says many of her patients are angry at Hillary Rodham Clinton, feeling that she has forgiven her husband too easily. Mrs. Clinton, they feel, projects a message to women that preserving marriage for the sake of the children is paramount. ''They feel she is a very damaging model,'' Dr. Spring said.

Recently Dr. Spring met to discuss adultery and rebuilding trust after infidelity. Following are excerpts from that conversation.

The most reliable study is in a book called ''Sex in America'' by Edward Lohman. He reported 15 percent of women and 25 percent of men had affairs. When I looked at the data I found answers included interviews with a 19-year-old. When you are 19 years old and you've never had an affair it doesn't mean you're never going to have an affair. So I looked at the mid-range of numbers and found that 20 percent of women and 37 percent of men admitted to having affairs. That boils down to one in every 2.7 couples. I think those numbers are low because their definition of an affair hinges on sexual intercourse alone. There are a tremendous number of Internet affairs.

Q. If someone has a relationship over the computer, do you consider that adultery?

A. An affair is not about sex but about secrets and a violation of trust. If you find out your partner is spending hours in chat rooms talking pornographically to partners, you could feel very violated. To me it is an affair because it is a secret and a violation of trust.

Q. Why do people have affairs? Is there a particular time in life that this occurs?

A. I don't find that it happens at any particular life stage or any particular pattern. There are external stressors that definitely push people off balance.

It could be the birth of a child where the woman feels unattractive and a loss of function because she has given up a solid career to stay at home. Or the husband feels replaced and cut off from sex.

It could be a tremendous success in a career -- I see a lot of Wall Street types in this area who work in New York City and have made a fortune. They become grandiose about their success, feel inflated and entitled to whatever they can get their hands on.

Or it can be someone who loses a job or is bankrupt and feels incredibly deficient or inadequate. Or you could be turning 50 and your father died young and you realize you don't have many years left. Or your kids could be moving into adolescence and exhibiting their sexuality and you're feeling the loss of your own.

Q. Has the fear of AIDS caused a decline in affairs?

A. I don't think so. I think that affairs are illicit and forbidden and hot. And romantic love can be intoxicating and incredibly convincing that it's true love, that this is the right person for you, that they will answer all your prayers and cure all your ills and make up for all the harm of the past. I think people often feel ambushed by affairs and romantic love and sacrificing everything for someone they hardly know and feel unable to explain their behavior, how irresponsible and reckless it was.

Q. Do religious values prevent people from entering into affairs?

A. Religion, like other external constraints, doesn't keep people from having affairs. Many of the great religious leaders have been the biggest philanderers. Rules and institutions and guilt and commandments do not make people faithful.

A. I think the American public felt it deserved an apology. I think if President Clinton wanted to continue as President he had to meet the demands of the American public. He presented himself as not making a heartfelt confession but as being told by his advisers this is something he must do to save his skin. It came across as shallow or sanctimonious or wooden rather than truly remorseful. He said things like ''I feel terrible for having to admit this.'' You weren't sure at that point that he was sorry that he had done it.

Q. Can anyone who has committed adultery be forgiven?

A. One of the things that the hurt partner needs is the sense the unfaithful partner has compassion for the harm that they've caused. Without that, people have no reason to trust or forgive.

Q. Does having an affair usually end a marriage?

A. People will often ask me what my success rate is. My response is I don't base my success on whether or not people stay together. It's based on whether or not people make a thoughtful self-interested decision about staying together.

For some people it makes sense not to forgive because their partners are incapable of being faithful or because their partners are unwilling to do the work necessary to earn back their trust. I emphasize the word because trust and forgiveness are not cheap gifts. Unfaithful partners have to be willing to do things every day that help the partner feel safe. Hurt partners don't heal with a single act of confession.

Q. Do you believe in confession, or is it kinder not to admit to an affair?

A. Some experts say you absolutely must reveal it in order to rebuild your relationship. When you reveal your affair, it deconstructs your relationship and allows for a new level of honesty.

Other experts say you absolutely must not reveal it. When you do, you destroy the spirit of the hurt partner. They never recover. Keep it to yourself.

I have found that people go on to build better bonds, better marriages, after telling and after not telling. What is essential is to understand the meaning of the affair, why they had the affair and to address those issues.

One of the dangers of not telling is that people give up the lover, return to the marriage, but they never face the problem and so they live in a prison. They come back to something stale or damaged and they never work to reinvent their relationship. That's not good for anyone.

Q. Do you think it is better to stay together for the sake of children?

A. People often want to know if they should tell their kids. There are no hard answers.

Obviously it matters a lot how old your kids are. I've found with older kids, college age or late adolescence, often parents confess. Often kids that age had some knowledge or an inkling. They feel relief to talk about it and have it out in the open.

The one piece of research that comes through most reliably is that it's usually better for kids to have parents divorced than to be in an attack family where the parents are fighting bitterly and the kids feel caught in the middle.

What matters, Constance Ahrons says in her book, ''The Good Divorce,'' is that you form a parenting partnership for the sake of the children and that you learn to care about your children more than you hate each other.

Q. Are people who have affairs likely to have them again?

A. I want to say that affairs also happen to good people in good marriages, people who enter marriage fully expecting to be monogamous. It's a value they believe in and teach their children and something's gone terribly wrong that they never dreamed of, never counted on. They feel terribly ashamed.

We're not experts on relationships. We're not prepared for the normal disillusionment that takes place in every healthy, enduring relationship. One day we wake up and feel terribly let down by our partner and it's easy to blame your partner and not have a clue how you've contributed to it. If someone else comes along who's ever so adoring, it's easy to detach and get swept up in something new.

There are incredible lessons to be learned from affairs or any trial. Parents have a chance to teach their kids that we often make terrible mistakes and hurt people we love unwittingly.

We can grow from these and do better and people can grow up and look at their unbeautiful parts and understand for the first time what it means to love and to be truly intimate and to build something stronger than they ever had before.